Social stodies
Social Studies Worlds Held Together, Worlds Torn Apart # Questions to Discuss #* What holds a culture together, and what might cause a culture to fall apart? #* What culture, or cultures, do you belong to? #* Is your culture the same as your country? #* Where did you develop your culture? #* Are any cultures incompatible with one another? #* Is it ever acceptable to say one culture is better than another? #* What might drive a person to abandon his or her culture? #* Does it mean more to you to see an original artwork than a perfect duplicate? #* What makes a place authentic? How about a cuisine? #* Suppose the original you had died and you were a perfect duplicate who had been created as a replacement—would you want to be told you weren’t the original you? #* Can you think of a symbol or hand gesture that means something to you but would mean something different to your parents—or to people in another part of the world? # The Ties that Bind #* Sources of Cultural Identity #** Frameworks to Evaluate: The Five Dimensions of Culture (http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_66.htm) | Mechanical vs. Organic Solidarity | Sociobiology vs. Cultural Selection | Functionalism #** Key terms: Ethnocentrism | Cultural Adaptation | Social Structure | Symbol | Pluralism | Ethnicity | Nationalism | Subculture | Enculturation | Rituals | Inversion | Reinforcement Culture Shock | Deviance #** Examples to Consider: Festivals | Sporting Events | Political and Other Crises #* Socializing Agents in the 21st Century #* Semiotics: The Study of Meaning-Making #** Signs and Signifiers #** Icons, Indexes, and Symbols #** Sample Exhibits: Gendered Bathroom Signs | Hipster Beards| Car and Clothing Colors | Software Design #* Obstacles to Intercultural Communication and Collaboration #** Trompenaars' model of national culture differences #** Chronemics and cultural perceptions of time #* The Reemergence of Anarchism # Break-Ups and Breakdowns #* Balkanization and the Disintegration of Nations: #** Exhibit: The Breakup of Yugoslavia vs. the Partition of India #** Selection: Vaclav Havel, 1995 Harv Post-Structuralism: #** Simulations, Simulacra, and Hyper-Reality #** Selection: Jean Baudrillard, excerpt from America #** Selection: Umberto Eco, “The City of Robots” from Travels in Hyperreality #** Sample Exhibits: The Sims | Las Vegas | Amusement Parks hfhurcjgbhc # Additional People to Investigate (Examples) #* Michel Foucault | Martin Heidegger | Judith Butler #* Charles Sanders Peirce | James Scott | Fons Trompenaars #* Emile Durkheim | Geert Hofstede | Robert Merton | Chie Nakane # Current Cases and Questions to Discuss * Is the Internet a force against Balkanization, or something that encourages it? #* Do the so-called “weapons of the weak” inevitably include terrorism? #* Is the “World Wide Web” the world’s best example of functioning anarchy? #* Do examples such as “jaywalking, the anti-SAT movement or assembly-line slowdowns” show that anarchy has a place in modern society? #* How important is a common language to a shared cultural identity? Should countries and/or cultures protect their languages? #* Consider Vaclav Havel’s argument in the speech selected above. Is he setting forth an effective strategy, or simply coming across as naïve? #* Suppose a beautiful natural landscape - such as Yosemite in the United States - were to be destroyed in a freak accident - say, by a satellite falling out of space and blowing it up. Would it be right to reconstruct that landscape for future generations to enjoy? Would your answer be different if it had been destroyed by a natural event (such an earthquake)? #* Should governments try to preserve their country’s cultures? If so, how? #* What does the growing popularity of post-apocalyptic fiction (such as stories of the zombie apocalypse) suggest about today’s world? Is it related to the popularity of superheroes Answers: ofek and ido: * What holds a culture together, and what might cause a culture to fall apart? ' ' ' a culture is held together by its people and their behaviors. usually the more famous people are the ones who set the example for the rest of the people, changing the culture or adding something new. examples for this kind of situation can be found in countries like the USA where the celebrities set the social behaviors to almost everyone who knows them. of course this situation may cause a culture to fall apart, in case a celebrity is acting in a non-fitting way which might cause their fans to follow their lead and maybe even do something crazier. As the people start behaving in the famous way, following their idols, some people might not think that doing what the famous person is doing might not be very good. Then, slowly the fans will make a new society, with all kinds of new expressions and celebrities, while all of the people who don’t want to follow will stay back and slowly their known culture will fall apart. ' ' ' * What culture, or cultures, do you belong to? I belong to several cultures, some of them are ancient and some are newer. The first one is the jewish culture, because we live in a jewish country and I come from a jewish family. The jewish culture, unlike the other cultures we are a part of is a religious culture. Second, we are a part of the israeli culture since we live in israel. Third, we are also a part of the educational culture, like almost everyone, we go to school everyday. Beside from the educational culture, we are part of a gifted class, which has an entirely different culture for itself, since the gifted class students are some of the smartest students in the country. * Is your culture the same as your country? we would like to think that our culture is partially the same as the country we live in because we live in a religious country and like we explained before, our main culture is the jewish culture. therefore, our country is surely a part of our culture. * Where did you develop your culture? we develop our culture everywhere, since anything we see, hear, or like can change our culture completely. * Are any cultures incompatible with one another? As you might guess by yourself, some cultures don’t get along so well with one another. for example, religious cultures: the jewish culture and the islamic culture. these two are known to have a lot of disagreements. That is because of an ancient controversy. * Is it ever acceptable to say one culture is better than another? It won’t ever be acceptable to say that one culture is better than another because no one really has the experience of both cultures from birth. One man was raised in one culture and the other was raised in a different culture, none of them had actually experienced both cultures from the day he was born. so how can they say their culture is better? ' ' '' * What might drive a person to abandon his or her culture? There are many things that may drive a person to abandon their culture, for example, love. If two people are in love in each other and they are from different cultures one of them may consider leaving their culture to the favor of the other’s culture. Second, a person’s friends might drive them to leave their culture. A friend has many effects on his friends, because they spend time together, do activities together and sometimes everything together, and if they are too distant from each other, it won’t work. After years of friendship a person will probably consider leaving their culture for his friend. So in conclusion, a person who abandons his or her culture was probably doing it because of another person’s effect in them. * Does it mean more to you to see an original artwork than a perfect duplicate? Yes, looking at an artwork made by the official artist is way more satisfying than seeing a duplicate, even a perfect one, and for a few reasons. First and foremost, when you look at the original artwork made by the official artist, you try checking what they were trying to say in their work and see what the message is like, however, when you see a duplicate, even perfectly made, it is less thrilling to try and find out the artist’s ideas. For example, when you see your favorite band singing your favorite song live it is one of the most fun things to do, though seeing a different band singing the exact same song is not the same at all. Further more, when you look at a duplicate of a creation and know that there is an original work out there you feel like you’re missing something, since you know the person who drew the duplicate didn’t think of the creation themselves, they just copied it from the original artwork. So to sum up, an artwork’s worth isn’t only in the artwork itself, it’s about the artist, their story and the message they were trying to move on. No, Imagine to yourself that you are going to a museum, and you see an artwork, for example, Dali’s artwork, but, what you don’t know is that this is not Dali’s artwork, it’s a duplicate, a perfect one and there is no difference between the original artwork and the duplicate. So, if it’s the same, you are looking at the same artwork, but made by another artist why should it matter to you? you are looking at the same artwork. * What makes a place authentic? How about a cuisine? What does make a place authentic? well first of all we will have to define ‘authentic’. Something authentic is something genuine, original, not copied from something else. Now that we know what authentic means we can start answering the question. There are many things that can make a place authentic. For example, food. Authentic places will usually have their own original food or food they are recognized by. Lets take france, everyone know france, the Eiffel tower, triomphe, but france isn’t known just for it’s amazing structures, think about it, when you see a croissant what is the first thing that pops up in your head? france. same with a baggett, fondu, and maybe even more. Another thing that will make a place authentic is what they wear. For example, take india, one billion people in the same country and they are still recognized for wearing surries. You dont go to india expecting to see people wearing fine suits and ties, even though it might be because the people don’t have the money for these kinds of clothes since every country has it’s poverty areas they are still characterized with different kinds of clothes than what we may know. * Suppose the original you had died and you were a perfect duplicate who had been created as a replacement—would you want to be told you weren’t the original you? No, if i were a perfect duplicate of the real me i wouldn’t want anyone to tell me that and for a few reasons. First and foremost, if I were a perfect duplicate of myself, it would mean that i’ll do exactly what the real me would do in every situation. That means that I would have the exact same judgement and reactions as the original me. Now, if someone was to tell the original me he was a perfect duplicate of himself he wouldn’t believe it, since it would sound like a complete joke. if we take both facts together and set the situation - we would find that even if someone would tell me the truth, i wouldn’t believe them. In addition, say that they will prove it to me, show me where i was created or some other facts and i’ll believe them, what good would it do?